IBM Embraces Stellar for its First Crypto-Token on a Public Blockchain

IBM, the technological giant, is gearing up for yet another foray into the blockchain world, as it plans to issue its first token. The token, dubbed ‘verde’ is in partnership with carbon credits startup Veridium Labs Ltd and will be issued on the Stellar blockchain. These will be designed in a way that will offer environment-polluting enterprises a means of offsetting that damage by supporting a patch of rainforest in Indonesia.

Carbon credits are not entirely new in their own right, but the process used in tracking the full extent of one’s pollution, then providing a guarantee that the funds will actually go towards replenishing the environment is currently difficult to do.

According to Jared Klee, IBM’s new blockchain offering manager, it is possible for the market to open up and become more appealing to a much larger audience. This, he says, can be made possible by moving the process to a blockchain that can be audited much more easily while at the same time tokenizing the credits in the same way that Bitcoin does in terms of tokenizing monetary value.

“We’re creating a fungible digital asset, a token which part of the goal is to create a market where people can buy, sell, trade and then redeem it for the underlying credits,” “By having a liquid market you open up a world of possibilities.” Our engagement with Veridium will mark the first public IBM involvement in a token issuance on a public network.

The verde carbon credit tokens are being created just on top of the public stellar blockchain and through a series of smart contracts, which follow the whole systematic process of accounting for a company’s emissions of carbon – and offsetting that pollution.

Veridium tokens go beyond that proof-of-concept by being backed up by Tripple Gold REDD+credits from InfiniteEarth, a sister company to Veridium founded in 2008 to help companies offset their environmental impact in a number of ways.